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While Columbus is on the verge of losing Saturday mail delivery like everywhere else, the U.S.
Postal Service hasn’t hit the city as hard as others in trying to reduce costs.

The service expects the cutback to begin the week of Aug. 5 and to save about $2 billion per
year, Postmaster General and CEO Patrick R. Donahoe announced yesterday.

Over the past several years, the Postal Service has unsuccessfully appealed to Congress to
approve five-day delivery. The service gets no tax dollars for its daily operations but is subject
to congressional control. Congress has included a ban on five-day delivery in its appropriations
bill.

But because the federal government is now operating under a temporary spending measure, rather
than an appropriations bill, Donahoe said, it’s the agency’s interpretation that it can make the
change itself.

“Our financial condition is urgent,” he said.Full-time letter carriers deliver mail five days a
week now. The sixth day is covered by letter carriers who float from route to route when the
regular carrier is off, said David Van Allen, an Ohio spokesman for the Postal Service.

The new plan would reduce the number of letter carriers needed. Some carriers will be
reassigned, and other positions will be eliminated through attrition. Package delivery, though,
would not be eliminated.

All or part of the mail from those facilities would come through the massive Columbus Processing
and Distribution Center near Port Columbus. That center would need to add people to handle the
volume.

The service initially said it might need as many as 400 new workers here, said Steve Charles,
president of American Postal Workers Union Columbus Area Local 232. That now seems like wishful
thinking, but jobs will be added, he said.

Columbus has slightly more than 2,400 postal employees, down from about 2,600 a year ago. About
1,320 people work at the processing center.

If it’s not clear how many jobs would be added here under current cost-cutting measures, it’s
also not clear how many positions would be eliminated here with a five-day delivery schedule, Van
Allen said. A total of 35,000 jobs would be cut nationwide.

Under the new plan, mail would be delivered to homes and businesses Monday through Friday, but
the Postal Service would continue to deliver packages on Saturday. Mail also would be delivered to
post-office boxes on Saturday.Post offices now open on Saturday would remain open on Saturday.

The president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, Fredric Rolando, said the move
flouts the will of Congress.

“(It) is a disastrous idea that would have a profoundly negative effect on the Postal Service
and on millions of customers,” Rolando said in a statement. “It would be particularly harmful to
small businesses, rural communities, the elderly, the disabled and others who depend on Saturday
delivery for commerce and communication.”

The Postal Service reported a record $15.9 billion loss for the last budget year, during which
it was forced to default on retiree health-benefit prepayments to avert bankruptcy. Those mandatory
costs for future retiree health benefits made up $11.1 billion of the losses.

Congress in 2006 required the Postal Service to set aside $55 billion in an account to cover
future medical costs for retirees. No other government agency is required to make such a payment
for future medical benefits.